Overview
Rating: 7.19
2024 stats: 28 G, 148.0 IP, 14-6, 3.65 ERA, 1.264 WHIP, 3.38 FIP, 2.7 bWAR
Date of birth: August 3, 1995 (age 28 season)
2024 salary: $10,011,000.
2025 status: Third (and final) year of arbitration, estimated arbitration salary is $14,100,000
While Brandon Pfaadt took a big step forward and will soon be receiving some well-deserved plaudits for his first full season in a Major League rotation, the fact of the matter is that Zac Gallen was and still is, the rotation’s best hurler. Coming off a 2023 season that saw Gallen toss a career high 210.0 regular season innings, plus an additional 33.2 innings of postseason work, there were some early concerns that Gallen would not be fully recovered for the 2024 season. As luck would have it, the 2023 workload ended up having almost no bearing on Gallen’s 2024 performance. Instead, Gallen’s biggest issue was Chase Field – more specifically, the HVAC system at Chase Field and how the current home facilities for the Diamondbacks are not up to snuff anymore.
On the season, Gallen exited the game early due to muscle cramps brought on by poor field condition management, namely keeping the inside of Chase Field at a normal operating temperature, on no fewer than three occasions. In addition to the early exits, Gallen missed somewhere between 5-7 starts entirely, as he worked with team staff to get his body into pitching shape without injury while recovering from those shortened outings. If Gallen had been the only pitcher to complain about playing conditions, those complaints could quite possibly be written off to Gallen just being a poor fit for the venue. However, this was Gallen’s sixth season pitching at Chase and he has not had this problem in the past. Furthermore, other pitchers complained about conditions on the mound, including the likes of Merrill Kelly, Brandon Pfaadt, and Kevin Ginkel. As the Diamondbacks are one of those teams that need to get every butt possible into seats, it is somewhat mind-boggling that upper management has not taken the steps necessary to make the Chase Field experience more comfortable for fans by fixing the HVAC issues. The fallout from such repairs being, that the team will likely perform better, which will also add to the incentives for fans to attend games. Sigh…
While Gallen’s 2024 season was not quite as dominant as his 2023 season, which saw him finish third in the Cy Young voting, it was still very similar in terms of rate production. The biggest difference was the number of innings pitched. With 63 fewer regular season innings under his belt, small fluctuations in things like walks look bigger than they would have if he had tossed 180+ innings again. Despite the number of times he left the game early, Gallen still managed to average 5.1 innings per outing. 13 times on the season, Gallen completed a full six innings or more. This includes a scoreless six inning outing against the Yankees in his second outing of the season.
Another indicator that fatigue, either from 2023 or from a hot summer in 2024 was not nearly as big a concern as many had feared is, Gallen started and finished the season strong. Gallen’s first stinker of an outing didn’t come until his fifth start, after already throwing a 10-strikeout game and two games in which he threw six scoreless innings. Down the September stretch, when Arizona was fighting for its playoff life, Gallen threw five starts, four of them resulting in wins. This included the two highest game score outings of the season for Gallen. His second highest game score of the season (73) came in his final start of the season, when he allowed only one run through six innings while striking out 11 San Francisco Giants.
The overall highest also came against the Giants at the beginning of the month, when he recorded a 76 game score, pitching six scoreless innings and striking out eight.
2025 and Beyond
Zac Gallen will be entering his final season of team control in 2025, with the right-hander expected to bring home slightly more than $14 million. As a Boras client, there exists little to no chance that Gallen will entertain an extension offer and will instead test agency while also being handed a qualifying offer by the Diamondbacks. Gallen is currently slated to be Arizona’s #1 in the rotation, followed by Merrill Kelly, Brandon Pfaadt, and others (based on health and performance). Arizona will be looking for Gallen to pick up where he left off last season, using his pinpoint-accurate curve to carve up the opposition and to help propel the Diamondbacks to another playoff berth. While Gallen will now be working with yet another new pitching coach, there is a strong argument to be made that the best thing Arizona management can do to help improve Gallen’s performance is to invest the time and money necessary to improve HVAC functionality at Chase Field, allowing the talented right-hander to pitch even closer to his Cy Young-caliber form. If Arizona happens to have a horrific first half and finds themselves well out of contention by the trade deadline, fans should expect Gallen to be one of the most attractive deadline trade candidates available, being a top-of-the-rotation arm on reasonable terms. Hopefully, Arizona will not need to consider such offers and Gallen will instead be held tightly as he leads the pitching charge to another playoff run.